With equipment similar to tennis, rules and play more similar to racquetball, and well off the grid of mainstream sports — for now, at least — squash is an intense, close-quarters, person-to-person sport with a rabid following among those who play.

This week, the Pro Squash Tour and Bates College are teaming up to host the first Bobcat Classic in conjunction with Bates’ alumni weekend festivities, and many of the big names in the tourney draw will have a connection to the Lewiston school.

“It’s really exciting to host an event like this,” Bates squash coach Patrick Cosquer said. “Our program is improving, our visibility is improving, and to include the PST, it’s another step to that improvement. To get this event to coincide with our alumni weekend is an amazing opportunity and really a unique experience.”

Joe McManus founded the Pro Squash Tour, or PST, in 2009, holding the first tourney in Natick, Mass., on Sept. 17 of that year. The 2010-11 schedule featured 13 events, and this season, the organization has scheduled 20 dates through April, 2012.

“I’m 40 now,” McManus said. “When I was a boy, soccer was trying to make some inroads into the mainstream, and it eventually succeeded and has its own professional league and is really growing. When I was in high school, it was lacrosse that started to make that push, becoming strong in prep schools and colleges. Now, I’m seeing very much the same thing with squash. I think this generation, in many ways, squash is the new, up-and-coming sport.”

Bates College was a logical host for one of the organization’s events, McManus agreed.

“Bates College has two of the top programs in the country, consistently ranked in the Top 20 in both men’s and women’s play,” McManus said. “There is a good base of talent that has ties to Bates, as well, including our No. 2 seed, Ricky Weisskopf.”

Weisskopf, a four-time national champion in El Salvador, graduated from Bates in 2008. Other former Bates College players expected to compete this weekend include Sean Wilkinson (Class of 2009) of Ireland and Kush Mahan (2009) of Kenya.

“It’s going to be fun,” Cosquer said. “We have a bunch of alumni coming back, it’s alumni weekend on top of that, and it’s the first time we’ve done anything like this at all at Bates.

“Two years ago, we had Kush Mahan who was our captain and one of our best players ever to play here. He played in a PST event after he’d used up his eligibility here at Bates,” Cosquer added. “Since then, we’ve had two or three alumni join the tour, so it was a natural fit to have an event with the PST here at Bates.”

A popular sport in many of the former British colonies, squash also found a niche at many of the United States’ top colleges and universities, as well as at the prep school level.

“If you look at all of the nation’s top colleges, they all have squash teams now,” McManus said. “That can certainly be one way for many students to think about it. It has a hook that way. But it’s not just there. You’re seeing it at the junior and club level, too.”

In that vein, both McManus and Cosquer see the sport beginning to shift toward a wider audience and participation base.

“Things are changing,” Cosquer said. “There is some diversity coming to the sport now. Across the league, we’re seeing some players from Harlem, the Bronx and Roxbury. The old stereotype is starting to break down and you’re seeing more and more people playing the game.”

Younger people, especially, Cosquer said.

“Junior squash programs have really experienced a boom in the past three, four, five years,” he said. “More young kids are playing the game, while continuing to also play soccer and football and whatever else. It’s starting to show in this country, we’re starting to get better American players, our national team is better.”

In addition to the professional draw this weekend, the PST’s Bobcat Classic will also include several rounds of amateur play in a full amateur draw, beginning Friday at the Bates College squash facility on Alfred Plourde Parkway in Lewiston.